News from the protein drug design group

2023-02-21

We are happy to announce a new paper has been published by the group about In vitro Blood-Brain Barrier by Jamie Morrison as the first Author. Congrats on your breakthrough research!

Standardized Preclinical In Vitro Blood–Brain Barrier Mouse Assay Validates Endocytosis-Dependent Antibody Transcytosis Using Transferrin-Receptor-Mediated Pathways

2023-01-22

A group has published a new paper in the Journal of Biochemistry.
Nicole Metzendorf and Jamie Morrison are both the first authors. Congratulations on your great work!

A single-chain fragment constant design enables easy production of a monovalent blood–brain barrier transporter and provides an improved brain uptake at elevated doses

2022-12-19

Greta Hultqvist, Associate Professor and researcher in Protein drug design, receives a SEK 1 million grant from the Alzheimer's Foundation. "My goal is for my research to contribute to future treatments, and with new protein drugs we can make a big impact," says Greta Hultqvist.

2022-12-05

The group is publishing a lot of papers at the moment. Two have just been accepted.

Blood-brain barrier penetrating neprilysin degrades monomeric amyloid-beta in a mouse model of Alzheimer's disease. Published in Alzheimer's Research & Therapy 2022-12-05. Nicole and Fadi are first authors and Greta the last.
The paper "Introducing or removing heparan sulfate binding sites does not alter brain uptake of the blood–brain barrier shuttle scFv8D3" have been published in Scientific reports 2022-12-12. Andrés de la Rosa is the first author and Greta Hultqvist the last.

2022-08-29

Fhe first students on the masterprogrammet in Biophamaceuticals have now started. We have 34 registerd students and they are from Sweden, Finland, Ghana, Jordan, Spain, Tunisia, India, Pakistan, Egypt, Etiopia, Bangladesh, Kenya, Nigeria, Cyprys, Greeze and China. Jamie Morrison in our group is the co-ordinator of the program and Greta Hultqvist the study director. We are looking forward to getting to know these students. https://www.uu.se/en/admissions/master/selma/program/?pKod=FBL2M

2022-07-20

Our paper "A brain-targeting bispecific-multivalent antibody clears soluble amyloid-beta aggregates in Alzheimer’s disease mice" have just been accepted in the journal Neurotherapeutics.

2022

Sweden's first Master's Programme in Biopharmaceuticals is launching in autumn 2022! To learn more about the programme, read here.
We have recieved a grant from Magnus Bergvalls stiftelse!
Our group has now moved to the Department of Pharmacy! We are happy to be here and we look forward to future collaborations and projects.

2021

Greta Hultqvist has recieved a grant from Alzheimerfonden!
Fadi Rofo is awarded Stohnes stiftelse price for PhD students in geriatrics.
The application for the new masters program in Biopharmaceuticals is now up.
Students Miruna, Samar and Muhammed joins the group.
Student Ana joins our group.
The project “GeneNova” is funded by Vinnova, Innovationsmiljöer inom precisionshälsa. A collaboration project led by Johan Rockberg at KTH and with companies as Vironova, AstraZeneca. The project aims to improve production strategies for AAV viruses. The protein drug design group will do proof of concept studies.
Our new course “Pharmaceutical protein drug development” is held for the first time. Course responsible is Jamie Morrison but also Martin Lord is doing a lot of teaching.
Students Jakob and Nazanin joins our group. Welcome Jakob and Nazanin!
Our paper Novel multivalent design of a monoclonal antibody improves binding strength to soluble aggregates of amyloid beta is published in Translational neurodegeneration.
Our paper “Wide-ranging effects on the brain proteome in a transgenic mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease following treatment with a brain-targeting somatostatin peptide” is published in ACS Chemical Neuroscience.

Vice chancellor approves the masters program in Biopharmaceuticals that has been developed by the GU unit Biopharmacuticals. Sofia Stenler together with Greta Hultqvist have been the main responsible for the program but of course with a lot of help and input from many others.
Alex Petrovic joins the group as a research engineer

2020

2020 Our paper entitled “Enhanced neprilysin-mediated degradation of hippocampal Ab42 with a somatostatin peptide that enters the brain” got accepted in Theranostics, https://www.thno.org/. Read it here.
Greta and Sofia are awarded a grant from Uppsala University to develop a digital lab for the Biologics Course
Come and listen to Greta at PEGS Europe, in Lissabon (November 11th 2020). She will talk about the nice results we have in our last submitted manuscript. https://www.pegsummiteurope.com/engineering-antibodies
The course in Biologics starts for the fourth time. This time the course will include students from the new international master program in drug development.
The course Biotechnology and immunology at the pharmaceutical program are held for the first time. We arrange this course together with Ulf Göransson.
Neira Babic, Isak Simon and Ulrika Linde have started in the group for their master projects!
Jamie Morrison has started in the group as a researcher! Welcome Jamie!
A new shaking incubator for the mammalian cells expressing our proteins have arrived and we have doubled our protein expression capabilities.
Canan Ugur Yilmaz is back in our group again, as a researcher! Welcome back Canan!
Antonino Napoleone joins the group as a research assistant and will work with the protein expression. Welcome Antonino!
Fadi Rofo presents his half-time seminar entitled: Enhancing the therapeutic effects of biological drugs with protein engineering.
Duah Hassan joins the lab for her master thesis project.
Aikaterini Chourlia has started to the group as a researcher assistant! Welcome Katia!
Inga Petersen is registered as PhD student in the group!
Nicole Metzendorf has started to the group as a senior researcher! Welcome Nicole!

2019

The protein drug design group together with the company BioArctic, Dag Sehlins and Stina Syvänens research groups receives the Biological drugs grant from Vinnova.
Join us in PEGS Euroupe, Fadi Rofo present our new data on multivalent binders.
Greta is rewarded with Vetenskapsrådets starting grant in medicine.
Andrés joins the group as a PhD student. Welcome Andrés!
Fadi Rofo presents our recent data on multivalent binders in ULLA summer school in Helsinki.
John Samuelsson joins the lab for his master thesis project.
Sofia presents at PEGS Boston, standing in for Greta, and talks about production of bivalet antibodies.
The course in Biological Drugs runs for the first time with students from the pharmacy programme.
Inga Petersen joins the lab as an Erasmus student. Welcome Inga!

2018

Canan presents data from our epilepsy/neuroinflammation study @13th European Congress on Epileptology in Vienna.
Canan joins to the group as a researcher! Congrats Canan!
Sofia Stenler joins the group as a postdoctoral researcher. Welcome Sofia!
We move our laboratory to a new bigger space in C4:2 at BMC.
Greta receives a grant of 1 million SEK from Alzheimerfonden.
Canan Ugur Yilmaz joins the group as a guest researcher. Welcome Canan!
Fadi Rofo is the first one to join the group. He starts as a PhD student in December 2017
Greta is presenting data about our BBB transporter on both PEGS Europe and Festival of Biologics.